Thursday, August 17, 2006

Feminists for Hezbollah

In a sign of how far the feminist movement has strayed from its heroic roots, feminists in London marched in support of Hezbollah recently.

Women pushing their children in buggies bearing the familiar symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marched last weekend alongside banners proclaiming “We are all Hezbollah now” and Muslim extremists chanting “Oh Jew, the army of Muhammad will return.”

The writer of the article continues,

As a supporter of the peace movement in the 1980s, I could never have imagined that many of the same crowd I hung out with then would today be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with militantly anti-feminist Islamic fundamentalist groups, whose views on women make western patriarchy look like a Greenham peace picnic. Nor would I have predicted that today’s feminists would be so indulgent towards Iran, a theocratic nation where it is an act of resistance to show an inch or two of female hair beneath the veil and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not joking about his murderous intentions towards Israel and the Jews.

How could feminists, whose aim is one of equality, march with those who advocate anti-Semitism and the Taliban-style oppression of women? I got a possible answer when I lived in Boston and two women were brutally raped and beaten on the Common near my apartment by homeless men. When the city tried to clear out the men NOW organized a protest to defend the men. I called the local NOW chapter to ask why and their rep said "Coalition politics. We support their causes and they support ours." Reason had a great piece on NOW's 40th anniversary, lamenting how that organization has made opposing fathers' rights a top priority and has forgotten its original, and important, mission of seeking equality.